Top 5 Best And Worst Things About Pokemon X and Y

by Jeremy Williams

With the recent release of the newest games in the Pokemon franchise titled X and Y, and with it being the first time the series proper has appeared on the 3DS I think we should take a look at the best and worst this game has to offer. Starting off with the five best things and then the five worst things this game has to offer.

Best

1.Look and Feel
Well the first thing you’ll notice about this game as soon as you start it up is that no longer are they using sprites for the game world, Pokemon themselves, or the player character. Usually when ever a series makes the complete jump to 3D models after largely being done using 2D sprites there tend to be a lot of growing pains. Thankfully not much of that is going on here, the game looks more gorgeous than it ever has with many of the Pokemon models matching up to what we’ve seen in the show. One of the most important things is that it still plays and feels like a Pokemon game should. Another minor change that is also important is that saving no longer feels like it takes an actual minute, it actually goes by so fast that I find myself saving multiple times because of how quick it is.

2.Online Play and the PSS

Here’s another great addition to the series that also won’t take long for you to get into, being that you’re able to go online as soon as you get a hold of your Pokedex in the first couple minutes of the game. Not only that, but after you have it and are near a WiFi source, you’re able to get online just about anywhere in game and see dozens of other players connected from all over the globe using the PSS (Player Search System). No longer do you need to check into a Pokemon center and go into various parts of it to play or trade with friends nearby or online. You actually don’t even need to have the Pokemon you wish to trade with people in your party, since now you can go through your boxes as well as your party during a trade. As soon as they are registered you and your friend can trade in person or online, battle and send new powers that act as little boosts. Even start a game chat session and talk using the built in mic. Not only can you do all that with your friends but anyone you see online on the touch screen which is dedicated to PSS, Pokemon-Amie, and Super training. The last really great addition to online is that you can also access the Wonder Trade and the GTS (Global Trade Station) just about anywhere in game, which are vast improvements over past games where you could only access them at certain locations.

3.Pokemon-Amie
This feature that I just mentioned was announced pretty early on in the promotional videos for XY, and when I first saw it I thought it looked like a pointless Nintendogs looking mini-game. Though it does have quite a few similarities to those games, it’s in no way pointless. Even though on the surface it may seem that way, its not, after you actually get into it and its mini-games which consist of Berry Picker, where you drag specific berries to your Pokemon, Head It, where you and three of your Pokemon attempt to keep balls of yarn from getting past them, and lastly, Tile Puzzle, which is just like most other puzzles. The point of these is to play any of the three as best as you can to earn poke puffs to feed to your Pokemon to boost its affection towards you. This is very useful since if your Pokemon has full affection it helps them get rid of status affects, like poison, by themselves. In addition to that bonus, it also helps them land more critical hits and even take less damage from attacks, in the same way that some attacks allow a Pokemon to survive with one hit point left.

4.Player Customization
Another major addition to the series is unlike before where no matter what gender you picked, you were stuck with their default look. But not anymore, now you can change anything from your hair to the outfits you wear. They even have dedicated shops all around the region that you can buy stuff from like shirts, bags, hats, accessories, and for girls you can find new dresses. It’s a very much welcomed addition to the series which has been sorely lacking these past couple generations.

5. Pacing and Story

If you’ve ever played a Pokemon game before you know that it takes awhile to get started, not in this game though. Within the first hour your should have your first starter, first gym badge, skates, and a new and improved EXP share. EXP share helps the pacing exponentially by no longer being an equip-able item, its an item that can be turned off and on as well as provide XP for your entire party. You even have your running shoes as soon as you leave your house. On the story side of things you no longer have just a rival, you have an entire group of friends that pop up throughout your entire journey. They even changed it up so that the professor isn’t the one that gives you this region’s starter Pokemon its your friends, though he is the one that gives you a starter from the original games and it’s corresponding mega stone. One of my personal favorite additions to the story was that in past generations you would catch legendaries, stop criminal organizations, and other things which would largely go unnoticed. But in these games the entire region basically knows all that you’ve done good and how you’ve basically saved the world by the end of the game. In my opinion this is probably the best pacing and story that any Pokemon game has had before.

Worst

1. Pokemon boxes.
Now with all that they did right with these two games, there of course had to be things they did wrong. But it’s not that they did a lot wrong, its what they messed up they messed up big time. For example in most recent games you would have upwards of say 17 Pokemon boxes that would hold 30 Pokemon each. Sadly this game only has 7 boxes that still hold 30 Pokemon each, not including the battle box which holds six Pokemon. What’s so bad about this is that they probably didn’t make this mistake because they couldn’t have anymore Pokemon boxes, they did this most likely so people would pay an annual fee for the upcoming Pokemon Bank to be released sometime at the end of this year. With there now being seven hundred Pokemon in the series, it’s ridiculous that you can only catch and store about two hundred of them, that is unless you want to pay an unknown amount to store them in a 3DS app. In my mind this is definitely the worst part about this game so far and is entirely unforgivable.Update After hearing from some I found out that apparently your boxes increase as you catch more pokemon. So I apologize for that but my feelings are still the same in regards to the Pokemon Bank.

2.Friend Safari
This new feature is a twist on the classic Pokemon Safari, where you are no longer using Safari balls. There is also no longer a traditional safari as we’ve come to know. Instead it’s been changed to whatever people you have listed as friends and depending on the friend you will get one of any of the specific type of Pokemon. Like say you have a friend and by chance the type he happens to give out will be fire type. So when you visit his safari you’ll be able to go in and try and capture any of the three Pokemon he has. Those three will never change even if he shares his friend code with someone else which is what bugs me the most about the new Friend Safari. Not only is this the way to catch most of the Pokemon from past generations, but to get your favorites you have to be online looking for people willing to share their code and that they know what Pokemon are in their safari. It honestly would’ve been a really good idea and change to the series if they made it so that if you had a certain type of safari your friends could catch any Pokemon that is that type, made it to where certain days you could catch Pokemon that you couldn’t in others, or at least made it so that you could have more than just three Pokemon in a safari.

3.DLC
Now there have been no mentions of DLC, but it’s the possibility that has me worried. For one, DLC could really ruin the fun of a game like this. Be it having the ability to pay for items that may be hard to find in game for some, being able to pay for any Pokemon there is, or having the ability to buy as many stat enhancers you want. Now that’s not to say that there aren’t benefits of DLC. I for one think it would be a much better idea if instead of the usual events that are online for a few weeks, that they make it so it’s free DLC for that normal period and then later maybe charge a dollar or so for it. Especially since that’s the problem with buying a Pokemon game after it’s been out for a year.

4.Lack of In Game Friend Registering
This one is kind of in the game, to where I noticed that sometimes when you trade with people it will ask if you want to register them. For me though it seemed to be a bit iffy and wouldn’t really ask me that every time I would trade. What would’ve been a lot better is if when you looked at their profile it gave you the option to add them. Even having it list their Friend Code could’ve been better than how it is, though it is more reliable I found while battling.

5.Lack of Original Pokemon
This game follows the trend that the last two games set, with there not even being one hundred new Pokemon. I mean, I love how common some of the older Pokemon could be, but it really bugs me that I ran into way more old Pokemon than I did the new ones. In fact, including the legendaries, there are only sixty-eight new Pokemon! Are you kidding me, that’s a ridiculous amount especially for a Pokemon game that’s the first on the current Nintendo handheld generation. What bugs me even more about that is that I found myself really liking most of the new Pokemon, especially since I avoided the last generation of games due to my distaste for most of the new Pokemon.

Even with all the things wrong with it I still really do think this is one of my favorite Pokemon games of all time, even up there with my all time favorite Pokemon game Yellow. There’s even tons of other cool and great additions I didn’t mention in this article. But if you are in any way a fan of the series and if you can get past the negatives I mentioned, I really do recommend these games to anyone who has a 3DS or has yet to buy one. Though like with all Pokemon games there are exclusives to each game so, before buying make sure to look into which game has more of your favorites.

“This game follows the trend that the last two games set, with there not even being one hundred new Pokemon.”

See, this makes me laugh a bit. I’m going to assume that by “last two games,” you’re referring to Pokémon B/W and D/P/Pt. Gen 4 brought to us 106 brand new Pokémon, and while certainly not record-breaking, it wasn’t the lowest inflow of new Pokes we’d seen at the time (Gen II had exactly 100). Even more impressive, Gen 5 brought with it 155 new Pokémon, setting a record for greatest number of new Pokes out of the current generations.

Moral of the story is, if you’re going to make an uneducated comment to a mass of individuals who know their sh*t, you’re going to fall on your face and look like an idiot.

First of all, the more Pokemon you have, the more boxes you have. Currently I have 15 boxes, not including the battle box, and I’ve read that it increases all the way to 30. This is more than enough to store every Pokemon from every game, assuming you don’t have more than 182 duplicates. I’ve caught about 208 Pokemon so far and I have no complaints about the size of the storage system.

Also if you weren’t reading closely, the Pokemon bank is only going to cost $4.99 a year. Can you honestly complain about such a token amount? It isn’t like it is free for them to maintain what will most likely be millions of Pokemon on their servers.

But I do agree with you on one point. The friend safari is basically worthless. I have a mere 3 friends on 3DS because that’s how many people I know that own one. those nine Pokemon aren’t nearly as useful as the old safari. There aren’t quite enough 3DS players out there for this to be a valid idea, and it shouldn’t have replaced the regular safaris.

Thank you for letting me know that and while that does make me feel so much better about this game, it is still dumb that the more you catch theirs boxes you have. Since you’ve always had access to all your boxes from the start. And it still does suck cuz I personally know people who have favorite pokemon and have a whole box full of them. Or when there would be Unknowns I myself would try to get them all. But Yeah that amount isn’t that much and I agree with you on that but I know I’m not alone when I say that I’d rather pay a one time fee. But yeah it I rather pointless and rather useless since how hard it may be for people to find more friends let alone ones that have good pokemon.